Van Tuz, on 13 January 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:
Not necessary. Cluster munitions may be the only introduced ammo type for Arrow IV. That way this system can be used for one specialised purpose: kicking enemies out of cover and preventing "staring contest" between teams. This won't hurt LRM in any way because shells with mortar trajectory won't be effective against moving mechs.
It would have to be the base and only type of Arrow ammo in the game (minus the hero mech of course

), unless they specifically made different weapon "types" that would only shoot off that specific ammo. However, I doubt that many players looking to use an Arrow system is going to be expecting or wanting a barrage weapon. I suspect many of them would want to have the basic and more well known ammo, which is a single missile that deals 20 points of damage to a single component. Arrow is known as a mech killer (just like AC20s, but with longer ranges). Of course, with double armor, it wont be as "killer" as it was in lore. But we don't want a weapon system to be head and shoulders above the rest...
Van Tuz, on 13 January 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:
You are missing many important things:
1) Brawlers can lose their ammo when damaged. LRM boats do not take much damage.
2) Brawlers need to invest tonnage in C.A.S.E. LRM boats may pack more ammo.
3) Brawlers may not even live long enough to deliver all of its potential damage. (please tell me you have tried using AC/20 as primary weapon) LRM boats are usually last to die.
4) AC and SRM are more likely to miss against fast targets than LRM.
All of these factors drop real damage values of AC or SRM far bellow what's on paper.
So, the question is: why should damage per ton of ammo for all weapons be absolutely equal? And what about lasers? You need 10 heat sinks for any mech anyway so one small laser gives infinite damage for 0.5 ton. Shouldn't we take this as a baseline?
Besides, by making LRM less susceptible to breaking locks we DO improve percentage of delivered damage. Just countering radar deprivation may actually if not make them a "mega impressive weapon system" but significantly improve their efficiency in higher tiers.
Here is where you aren't entirely wrong, but aren't entirely correct either.
1. So can LRM equipped mechs. They can take more damage than you seem to think. Especially if used as a skirmisher role, a few as a support weapon or if it's being used in direct line of sight (and within 600m or closer). The things the weapon system is more efficient as.
2. CASE most times doesn't help mechs in MW:O. Most people take XL engines as it is, and even if they took a Std engine, ammo that is destroyed only has a 10% change of exploding in this game. Now if this was TT, where if an ammo crit slot was crit it's a 100% chance to explode...
3. Same can be true for LRM mechs. Sometimes, you round that corner and see the team. Sometimes, if you are hiding out back, a swarm of lights finds you first, and kills you. (And for the record, I've used every weapon in the game. I've even done the dual AC20 Jagermech, but didn't really like it much.)
4. LRMs are horrible against fast targets. They often times will run most of the LRMs shot at them into cover or the very ground behind them. Especially if they run perpendicular to the LRM flight path (still a thing, just not as effective as it once was). A well placed AC round can disable a light mech. SRMs can spread and deal ready damage to their legs. (if hit reg and HSR is working properly. Sometimes, I can visually hit a mech with my weapons, and nothing seems to happen...) Now you are talking about skill, more than the weapons themselves. Now we are falling into the realm of "can you hit a light mech with X weapon?"
Damage per ton of ammo doesn't need to be equal, and it isn't by what I posted. However, you can't just drop one type of ammo completely underneath the rest by half (with the exclusion of AC20, which is just under double of your proposed change). It's like you aren't considering that many LRMs still tend to miss, to the point where the average LRM accuracy stat is typically around 30-40%*. Even with me playing LRMs mostly up front and typically within 600m or closer, I still only have an accuracy of 40-50% with my LRMs. (Though, I will admit that I sometimes will throw some LRMs at a target I know I can't hit, just to drive them off a teammate. Amazing what that little "incoming missile" warning can do sometimes,)
So, now take that 180 ammo count, toss 50% away. That's 90 damage per ton of missile that's actually doing anything with my standard/best accuracy average for LRMs. Now, with your proposed change, that will drop down to 45 damage potential per ton with same said accuracy.
My other weapons I tend to get anywhere from 60% to 80% accuracy (at a quick glance, I see a lot of 80% accuracy for direct fired weapons). I'll go with 75% accuracy for the ACs, being what appears to be the middle ground. Now, the AC10 (I actually have 80% with that weapon) has 200 damage potential per ton. Correcting for accuracy turns that into an average damage potential per ton to be 150. (This is expected damage per ton of ammo will deal. Not saying I'd empty my bins of all ammo, hence it's in damage potential per ton.)
So, unless LRMs gain a 90-100% accuracy boost, 90 round per ton would drastically hinder LRMs, making them practically useless unless boated, and those boats would now no longer be able to consider back up weapons, because all that tonnage would be forced into ammo. But, if you made them more accurate, than people would be more likely to boat them as well...
(*And recall, I'm using numbers derived by my own stats. I know many people claim much lower LRM accuracy than I seem to have, but I used my own as those are the numbers I can prove as solid factual stats for the weapon.)
Van Tuz, on 13 January 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:
Do not mix my arguments as you like please. Cutting ammo density would not improve LRM performance as secondary weapon. But it won't hurt it either. AMS changes would improve LRM performance as secondary weapon. If you re-read my previous post then you may note that LRM5 is a complete waste of tonnage against anything equipped with current AMS with modules. LRM 10 (or maybe even 15) won't reach their target if there's 2-3 AMS in cluster unless you happen to perfectly time your launches with your teammates (a pretty random and unreliable thing i would say). That's a complete waste of 6-7 tons. (8-9 in case of LRM 15) And you're complaining about need to take 1-2 extra ton of ammo. This and this alone prevents LRM from being a viable secondary weapon.
Your argument "well, if i need to take 2 extra tons of LRM ammo i might as well make it into an LRM boat" does not hold any water as well. Who builds their mechs that way? I do not. None of my mechs intended as brawlers or scouts did not suddenly ended as LRM boats.
"So, I'd like for you to explain to me how exactly you can believe that cutting ammo count per ton for LRMs would be helpful in encouraging it as a support system and not as a boated system?"
"Cutting ammo density would not improve LRM performance as secondary weapon. But it won't hurt it either.
"
How would it NOT hurt LRMs, when taken as a
secondary weapon system? This was the statement I was asking about.
"Your argument "well, if i need to take 2 extra tons of LRM ammo i might as well make it into an LRM boat" does not hold any water as well."
It would force one to place more tonnage to a secondary support system, and away from their primary focus on their mech. So, that would place LRMs at either: A. Don't take them as a secondary weapon at all because they need way too much tonnage to do so, or B. Boat LRMs if you are going to use them at all because it isn't worth trying to make the weight for a few support launchers.
People plan their mechs to have a good balance between ammo count and expected ammo expenditure. Currently, the general rule of thumb for LRMs for expected ammo expenditure during a match is one ton of ammo (180 rounds) per every 5 LRM tubes. So, currently, a single LRM5 would be paired with one ton of ammo. An LRM10 would be paired with two tones of ammo. An LRM15 with three tons of ammo, etc.
If ammo count was cut in half, now we would be looking at that same expected ammo expenditure per game to be two tons per every 5 tubes. This would result in an LRM5 desiring two tons of ammo, an LRM10 wanting to have four tons of ammo, an LRM15 wanting six tons of ammo, etc. These numbers would not change. 180 rounds per every five tubes of LRMs is the recommended expected use for a match to effectively use an LRM system for the tonnage invested. You may run out of ammo, but by then it should have done it's job. It doesn't matter how much is in each ton, its the number of missiles you need for the launcher that counts. (Of course, working off current game mechanics.)
Another example would be the AC2. I can run a single AC2 on a ton of ammo fine and typically run low but not completely out by the end of a match. An AC5 I typically want 2 tons. This is if I'm going light on tonnage for those weapons, and depends upon the rest of the build. Each system would actually want to have half a ton if not a ton extra for comfort. Now, what would happen if we reduced the ammo count per ton of these weapons by half? Is that going to effect the number of bullets I want to field, meaning I want to being less (same tonnage investment)? Nope. I'll just be forced to try and find the tonnage to double my effective ammo counts, which now needs twice the crit slots and tonnage. It's not going to change how many bullets I want to being with me at all, just forces me to be weighed down more.
Van Tuz, on 13 January 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:
Do you fathom why stripped down mechs do not move faster than fully loaded? Do you fathom how ammo from right arm feeds into launcher on the left arm without occupying extra space or critical slots in the torso? No? And you should not try to. What important is that AMS goes "rat-at-at-at" when bad missiles fly nearby and some of them fall down. Game balance. Period.
Van Tuz, on 13 January 2017 - 04:07 AM, said:
That's a balance oversight that i am aware of. However, if LRM5 is already the meta then it won't become any worse.
There are many things that can describe some of what you mention here:
1. A stripped down mech might not move faster due to being lighter possibly due to the way it is built. An Atlas, even if stripped and sitting in at 50 tons with an engine, may not move the same as a 50 ton mech designed to move faster. The legs are built to hold 100 tons up, so it may have structural pieces keeping it from "running free". The other part is, if you started to try and calculate this, than mechs would start to go faster in the middle of matches, as they lose arms and use ammo. That's a bit complex to add into a game, of most any sort...
2. This is the 3050s. Anything may be possible. However, I would presume that there are feeds everywhere in a mech, if the ammo feeds are so light and take so little space they might not be counted as a critical system. I would also mention, in BT, most ammo was stored in the same component as the weapon, or nearby. As a game function, it's not addressed, probably to try and keep things streamlined. It may also be presumed/encouraged that people who created custom mechs follow this logical path presented in the in game "example" and do the same to their designs. However, being gamers, people tend to find what is "best", not what always "makes sense" or "matches what is already here."
Just because I can't fathom how it might work, doesn't mean it might not be a more balanced approach. But, I for one would rather reward players who take AMS, and those teams that take them. I also would love to encourage more larger launchers over smaller ones, to try and make the LRM5 less "viable" in comparison, so all launcher sizes would be more viable systems to choose from. Your AMS system proposal, as I already pointed out, would actually encourage the streamlined-chain-fired-boating of LRM5 systems. Though AMS working as you describe would help out mechs that take some LRMs as a support weapon, it would be less effective against the most common LRM boat type out there, massed LRM5s.
So, between me not being able to wrap my head around an AMS that gets more effective the more missiles that come in and that proposal very probably aiding in the boating of lower tube count LRM launchers... I just don't see how it would solve the proposed problems. Sure, it would make support LRMs more effective, but at the same time it would make boated LRMs more effective. (I say this as most LRM boats just seem to take massed LRM5s. Though larger launcher boats are starting to make a resurgence with the recent LRM changes...)